On August 21, 2024, CBC Radio-Canada journalist Rania Massoud reported on the “Canada-funded centre for journalists in the Gaza Strip.” The organization in question is Press House-Palestine (PHP), which described the funding on its own website as a contribution to the opening of their “Journalists Camp,” which “aims to host female and male journalists, media activists, and graduates of media colleges from the Palestinian universities in Gaza Strip.”

As Massoud reported, PHP’s headquarters in Gaza City was destroyed in an airstrike in February 2024, so this new round of funding from Canada is aimed to create a space for a new office.

But there is a lot more to cover — and uncover here.

PHP was founded in 2013 by Bilal Jadallah, often referred to as the “father figure” of journalism in Gaza. The organization’s stated goals are to create a space for independent media “that reflects the values of democracy and freedom of expression and its principles” in Palestinian media. Two of its other stated goals are to “reject hate speech in Palestine” and to improve the quality of life for Palestinian journalists, including providing legal protection.

Beyond that, PHP owns Sawa News Agency, which is an Arabic-language news outlet.

PHP has been funded by various donors in the last decade, as listed on their website, including Switzerland, UNESCO, Journalists Without Borders, European Endowment for Democracy, Norway, and others.

In 2020-2021, the Government of Canada made a $23,000 contribution to PHP for a project referred to as “Journalists Have Power,” which is described as a project for “enhancing the capacities of Palestinian Journalists to understand democratic principles and human-rights frameworks, protect themselves, and exercise their accountability role in society.”

A video from PHP can be found on YouTube clearly stating that the funding came from Canada. The funding comes from the Canada Fund for Local Initiatives program under Global Affairs Canada, which is “a contribution program that contributes to Canada’s thematic priorities for international assistance (…) delivered through Canada’s missions abroad in countries that are eligible for official development assistance.”

While such endeavours sound eminently reasonable, are PHP-affiliated journalists who are “benefitting from services of the new place,” as Radio Canada noted, truly representing independent media?

In a YouTube video posted by PHP on July 18, 2024 entitled: “Press House – Palestine continues with you,” two journalists are featured: Doaa Jamal Rouqa and Ashraf Amra.

Rouqa’s Instagram page is public and popular, and on the surface, it surrounds her reporting during the war, and emphasizes children’s experiences. She has been featured in one interview giving airtime to claims that Israel is carrying out a “war of extermination.”

In the hours following Hamas’ genocidal massacres on October 7, 2023, Rouqa took to Facebook to celebrate, writing in Arabic “October, Gaza, Glorious — history will record. Alaqsa flood.” She also shared a picture of Hamas terrorists infiltrating Israel and captioned it: “May God protect them. #alAqsa Flood… A morning and day like no other on the road to liberation and great victory, God willing.”

Click below for larger images:

But celebrating and participating in terrorism are two different things, right?

Ashraf Amra is another photojournalist featured in the aforementioned PHP video.

In 2012, Amra received an award from recently-assassinated Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh. This was not the last time the two would meet. In September 2023, Amra was injured while he was covering Gaza border riots — notably not wearing a press vest — and was paid a visit by Haniyeh in a Turkish hospital. Footage shows the two speaking, and media reports conveyed that the conversation between the two included Haniyeh expressing appreciation for Amra and Palestinian media broadly for its exposure of “the crimes of the occupation.” Amra stated that his injury wouldn’t deter him from “returning to his ‘national role.’”

Less than a month after his injury, Amra made his way back to the Gaza border on October 7, 2023. This was documented by Amra and fellow freelance journalist Mohammed Fayq Abu Mostafa on Instagram Live from Khan Younis the very day of Hamas’ attack. In fact, Mostafa extensively detailed his experience at the border and in Sderot, Israel, and described breaking into a room where Israelis were hiding before being taken by Hamas terrorists.

Mostafa then encouraged his viewers to go to the border and cross into Israel: “Advice, whoever can go — go. It is a one-time event that will not happen again.” And Amra agreed, adding, “Really, it will not repeat itself.”

Amra also explained that he, too, was “near the Khuza’a area on the eastern border of the Gaza Strip” on October 7. He photographed his experiences, and one of the photos he took of a digger breaking the fence between Gaza and Israel was then used by Axios and other publications.

It is highly plausible that Amra and Rouqa are two of the 70 journalists benefiting from the new “Journalists Camp” project, considering their participation in the PHP promotional video. What does this mean for the 68 other journalists, like Hidaya Ismat Hassanein, Ihab Abou Diab, Rami Abu Jamous — acting director of PHP — and Hikmat Youssef, who are all affiliated with PHP?

Once this can of worms is open, it can be and often is endless. Back in October 2022, journalist Akiva Van Koningsveld reported in The Algemeiner that Shirin Khalifa was one over 300 Palestinian and Arab reporters who signed a statement supporting Shatha Hammad, who was stripped of an award after her terrorist-supporting and antisemitic social media was exposed. And Khalifa herself? A big Hitler fan that “feel[s] that history did him a great injustice,” who was awarded by PHP in June 2022 with the “Media Freedom Award.”

Even before that, in 2015 PHP hosted senior Hamas leader Khaled Mashal for a press conference to discuss the “ongoing Jerusalem Intifada.” According to the PHP press release, Mashal told attendees “that the battle against the Israeli occupation and its terrorism against Palestinians should be waged both on a national and international scale.”

Freedom of the press is nonexistent in the Gaza Strip. But the threshold for what is acceptable journalism, even from the Gaza Strip, needs to be clarified — especially if these journalists are relied on for their reporting.

Not only do media outlets have a responsibility to vet their journalists, but Canada has a responsibility to vet international causes they financially contribute to.

With the disturbing affiliations of PHP and its journalists now exposed, HonestReporting Canada has sent a letter to Global Affairs Canada calling on the Canadian government to seriously reassess its funding policies — or its threshold for what constitutes “independent media” — to ensure that taxpayer dollars are not used to empower individuals or groups who praise violence, undermine Canada’s anti-racism strategy and who undermine democratic values.